How did you come to direct 13?
I was approached before Mike Bartlett, the playwright, had written a word. I was attracted to the prospect of working with a young writer. The play is new, of the moment. It's rare to be part of such an excitingly . . . I want to say "political" play, but, in some way, it doesn't feel like the right thing. I don't want to be reductive. The play is about people, the populace and a prime minister and how the prime minister is a human being who has to make choices.

Does the news invade the rehearsal room?
It is amazing to be able to ring the writer up and say, "Have you seen the news? You've got to get that in." Mike and I joke about whether this will be the kind of play that will never be revisited. Perhaps it will become a historical piece that tells you how things have changed - or, fundamentally, how things haven't changed. The play is set so "in the now" that it's almost in the future. It feels visceral and exciting to be able
to talk about the London riots, or Egypt, or the Arab spring - to hear that on stage, in this moment, without it being either a verbatim play or a purely political one. This play, for me, is more about people and it just so happens that a lot of the people in it move in a political sphere.

How do audiences respond to political theatre?
Politics can put people off. We live in such a non-intellectual society and people often think they're going to be bored. Nobody reads the
papers any more; they just want to read the headlines. We're all used to hundreds dying in Afghanistan, for example, because we've been bombarded with it. That's where I hope theatre can play a role.

What do you want to achieve with this play?
I hope that we can achieve a production that is entertaining and satisfying - almost by accident, people will have watched Newsnight without realising it, through a story that is, in some ways, about a mother and her son. That's something everybody can relate to. That's not to say that older plays can't teach us, too. Recently, I directed plays by Terence Rattigan, After the Dance and Cause Célèbre, which I wouldn't have been drawn to if I didn't think, instinctively, that they spoke to me. In the same way, if you go to a good Shakespeare play, you should come away feeling that you completely understood one, if not all, of the characters' situations. It's healthy to have moments of realising how long ago Shakespeare was alive. Times have changed, but human behaviour, on a certain level, never changes.

Do you feel that theatre is enjoying
a golden age of new writing?
In theatre, everything goes in cycles. Right now, I hope that we are in a good moment for new writing and that we won't allow good writers to be sucked immediately into television and film, which is what happened the last time we had a boom. The generation before that - the David Hares and Tom Stoppards of this world - maintain their relationship with theatre. The importance it holds for them is clear. It doesn't have to be a choice. You can do both.

Will you be affected by cuts to arts funding?
The cuts will affect us all: those of us in theatre, TV and film. It's classic Tory behaviour. On one hand, they love to champion London's theatre but they rely on Cameron Mackintosh and others, who not only own theatres but have enough money to create brand new shows, rather than supporting it through the National Theatre, for example. Luckily, at the moment, the National is being run almost better than ever before by Nick Hytner. That One Man, Two Guvnors is on allows plays like ours to take place. We have no James Corden and nobody really knows what 13 is going to be about, but Nick isn't afraid of that.
The theatre, so often, is the thing that people champion when they talk about London. Sadly, other regions have been so ill-supported and these cuts put them into a high-risk category. London mustn't be the only place where we produce theatre. Going on tour, going to the
regions and the regions coming here are vital parts of our creative society.

Performances of "13", directed by Thea Sharrock, will begin at the Olivier Theatre, London SE1, on 18 October